Virtual machines can typically access virtual disks that are configured using one or more storage optimizations. Configuring a virtual disk to have a particular storage optimization often requires knowledge of the disk type of the virtual disk. When a virtual machine is created, the type of virtual disk to-be-included may not be known. In these instances, the virtual machine creator may not be able to choose an effective storage optimization because the virtual machine creator may not know the disk type of the virtual disk.
In virtual desktop infrastructure environments, virtual disks can be any disk type. For example, a virtual disk can store an operating system image from which a virtual machine boots; or the virtual disk can include a non-persistent write-back cache that stores data that is invalidated and destroyed when a virtual machine is rebooted. In some instances, the virtual disk can be an image customization disk created to pass through data and binaries that are used to customize a virtual machine after that virtual machine boots. Different disk types often have different properties, therefore these different disk types often map to different disk storage optimizations.
Virtualization platforms often cannot identify the type of disk included in a particular virtual machine. Rather, the system that creates the virtual machine is often the only system that knows the disk type of the virtual disk in a particular virtual machine. Selecting a storage-specific optimization can therefore be difficult for the virtualization platform because the platform does not know what type of virtual disk is included in a particular virtual machine.